Bruce was determined to leave, but the old man still gave him a cigarette and said: "Every new person who comes here, I will provide him with a cigarette for free. This may save his life at a critical moment."
, will also add one more client for me. If you really can’t bear the pain, come to me. The doctor welcomes every patient.”
Bruce took the cigarette and returned to the car stiffly. He put the cigarette into his pocket and sat in a daze on his seat until it started to rain again in Gotham.
With nowhere to go, Bruce could only stay in the truck. This was his only shelter. Although it was not very warm, it could at least protect him from the wind and rain.
Staying in the driver's seat, Bruce's mind kept echoing what the old man said, which was so ridiculous, unreasonable, and almost like a joke.
But the old man was not joking. He really regarded himself as a doctor, looking for solutions for those patients, thinking that he could cure them. In his opinion, if there was no pain, it was considered a cure.
Is this ridiculous? Maybe, but it's not unreasonable.
In these few days, Bruce deeply realized the importance of labor ability, which is the only hope for everyone here.
They must be able to work in order to survive here. If they can't move, then they really can only wait to die.
In order to gain the ability to work, they will try all possible methods, including using drugs to relieve pain.
There are two ways to treat diseases, one is to treat the symptoms, and the other is to treat the root cause. Bruce completely disagrees with using this chronic suicide method to treat the symptoms, but he also has no way to question why these people don't treat the root cause.
Because the two crumpled U.S. dollars he was holding in his hand could not even pay the hospital registration fee.
If you can only rely on yourself to obtain basic survival materials, then the phrase "the sky is unpredictable" will no longer be a simple sigh, but a bolt from the blue.
On the day when the thunder fell, many people had already died. The death penalty was imposed on the first day of the month, and they were only sentenced to fifteen years before they were sent away.
Bruce, who was lying on the seat, was still gradually getting hazy and sleepy, but this time, his dream kept falling, wandering between repeated falls and awakenings.
His hand holding the spear gradually loosened. The dual physical and psychological torture made him fall into a deep dream, so he did not hear some strange noises.
When he got up the next day, Bruce sat in his seat and stretched out. He felt a little better. The stomach pain symptoms had disappeared and his physical strength had recovered a lot. Moreover, the temperature no longer dropped today. After the temperature rose, the cold
The feeling also faded.
Bruce felt that everything was turning around, but this feeling did not last long. Ten minutes later, he discovered that the car would not start.
After getting out of the car to check, Bruce found that the lock of the fuel tank had been picked open.
The full tank of gas he had filled before was all stolen, and he slept so deeply last night that he didn't hear any movement.
The problem now is that if he wants to eat, he doesn't have enough money to refuel, and if he wants to refuel, he doesn't have enough money to eat.
If he doesn't refuel, he won't be able to do today's work. After eating today's meal, he will still have no money for tomorrow's meal. But if he doesn't eat, his gastroenteritis may become more serious, and his health
You will also be weaker.
After careful consideration, Bruce decided to refuel. He had to ensure sustainable development, rather than just eating the last meal.
Finally, he went to the gas station and used the remaining money to fill up the gas tank again. He also set aside some money to change the lock on the gas tank. At this point, he was penniless again.
After adding oil, you can go to work. As long as you work, you will have money and you can eat the next day. In this way, everything will be fine.
With such a mood, Bruce embarked on the journey again.
Like the previous few days, he came to the gangster's warehouse and started loading the goods. Today's business was particularly good. He loaded a truck full of goods and received a two-dollar tip. As long as he brought the goods to the distribution point,
He can earn another ten dollars and have enough food for three days.
Bruce felt that he made a right choice and did not use the money to buy food short-sightedly. Otherwise, he would still be worrying about tomorrow's meal.
I drove on the road, got on the viaduct as usual, and then began the long process of being stuck in traffic.
However, in the past, even if there was a traffic jam, I could move once every five minutes, and it would take several hours to run a distance of 20 kilometers. Although it was a bit slow, I could still finish it.
However, today the traffic flow seemed to be welded to death, motionless. Seeing that the sun was already overhead and half of the viaduct had not been completed yet, Bruce couldn't help but get out of the car to check the situation like other drivers.
If you don’t know it, you will be even more desperate when you look at it. A transport truck transporting dense ice raw materials for cold storage leaked. The leaked material froze the second half of the viaduct into ice. Now we are waiting for professionals to come and solve it.
If the professionals can't get through, there will be no delivery today.
He stayed on the bridge until two o'clock in the afternoon before Bruce was notified that the professionals were here, but they were not professional enough. He had to find more professionals, and the more professionals would not arrive until tomorrow. The entrance to the viaduct had already been
It's closed. The cars that are now blocked on the road are in bad luck and they can only leave tomorrow.
Standing on the viaduct, Bruce could clearly feel that the sunshine here was better than on the ground. Although it was still not clear, the view was wider, but his mood was not open enough.
He felt angry, aggrieved, and regretful, but he didn't know who to blame.
After asking about the situation, Bruce found out that the driver of the truck transporting raw materials stayed up late driving and didn't sleep all night. He didn't pay attention when he got up to check the valve today. As soon as he got halfway, the raw materials leaked completely.
The professional who came here for the first time said that these raw materials cannot be recycled. In other words, a small negligence of the driver put him in debt of at least 300,000 US dollars, and now Bruce has realized that 300,000 US dollars is not
Just a few meals for him.
The vast majority of drivers dare not leave their trucks. They have all experienced what Bruce experienced before. They may just go to the toilet or have a meal, and the gas will be stolen. The road is impassable, so they can only stay on the road.
this.
Some children ran to the viaduct to sell food. Many truck drivers bought it, but Bruce did not buy it because he had no money at all.
After being hungry for another day and night, Bruce felt that the fat in his body was being consumed rapidly, but his spirit was better than before, and he was no longer tormented by the ubiquitous hunger.
The next day, after the road was cleared, Bruce drove to the distribution point, but when he went back to check out, half of the money had been deducted.
The reason is that the goods were delayed for a day and failed to catch up with the previous batch of freighters, and the prices of the next batch of freighters have increased again. The gangsters can only recover the cost from their own heads.
Bruce no longer has the energy to argue with the gang at this time. He just wants to use the money to buy food because his body is telling him that if he doesn't eat anymore, he will face the risk of hypoglycemia.
Taking the dozens of dollars, he found a bakery on the roadside and bought two bags of cheap ready-made white bread, two baguettes, and some easy-to-store biscuits. He put them on the truck and asked a newsboy to buy them at a high price.
Several bottles of purified water were also put on the truck.
There is no good source of meat, so you can only buy finished sausages. But in fact, most of the finished sausages are offal, and the sanitary conditions are not up to standard, but Bruce can only make do. Without fat supplement, the body temperature will drop even more.
quick.
The only difficulty now is vitamins, vegetables are not easy to store, and he has no place to cook. Bruce must find himself a more stable place to live as soon as possible.
After replenishing food, Bruce felt a lot more at ease. As long as he could save some money, he could rent a better house. With a stable place to live, his journey to the slums would officially begin, and the next step would be
Get out of the East End on your own strength.
But Gotham is like this. Whenever a person is ambitious and wants to do something, accidents are bound to happen.
After dark, Bruce planned to find a place to park, but when he started the car, he found that there was something wrong with the operation.
, it seems that the steering system is not working well.
Bruce experimented for a long time and found that there was something really wrong with the car. He had to get under the car to repair it, but after an inspection, he found that the car was not completely new.
Although it looked glamorous on the outside, when he saw the internal structure, Bruce knew that this was a second-hand new car put together with a variety of old parts.
He had thought at the beginning that the gang would not be so kind as to give him such a good car for free, but the aging of the parts inside was worse than he imagined.
The next day, Bruce went to see the gangster from before. Their attitude was quite good and they were willing to repair Bruce's car. However, after the repairs were completed, before driving for a day, there was another tire problem.
Bruce discovered that the gangster's method of repairing cars was to replace the parts that were not working well on one car with another car, and then everything else depended on luck.
In other words, if they can successfully replace it, it is considered good. Since the first batch of students from the vocational and technical college have not yet graduated, most people rely on intuition to repair trucks.
Bruce knew that repairing it like this wouldn't work. He had to replace it with intact parts so that the car could run smoothly instead of breaking down halfway, but he didn't have the money to buy intact parts.
Bruce discovered that all the problems he encountered in the slums would ultimately boil down to two words: no money.
No money means no money. If you are one penny short of what you want to buy, you still have no money. One penny stumps a heroic man. This is not an exaggerated adjective. What's more, Bruce's difference is not even one penny. He only has one penny.
Divide money.
And at this time, a group of people came to him, claiming that they were here to solve Bruce's problem of having no money.
Looking at the strong man in the lead, Bruce asked: "You said you could lend me money, what about the interest?"
The strong man waved his hand and said: "We won't talk about that here. We only tell you how much you have to repay each installment. The lower limit of the loan amount here is US$300. For the next year, you will pay us US$50 per week."
Bruce didn't even need to think about this figure. He knew that this was the so-called loan shark. Seeing his lack of interest, the strong man put his arm around his shoulders and said:
"Our terms are already very favorable. Believe me, those who want you to pay back thousands of dollars in one go are totally blackmail."
"Look, when you are in urgent need of money, you take us 300 US dollars, and then you only need to pay us back 50 US dollars every week. 50 US dollars is not difficult for drivers like you. Maybe you can still have dozens of dollars left every week.
To subsidize the family income."
Seeing that Bruce still didn't accept it, he said, "Okay, if you like a more traditional method, that's fine, we'll lend you $300, and you'll pay us back $800 next month."
Bruce knew that US$800 was a huge sum of money to the slums, let alone US$800, US$80 was a huge sum of money to him now.
Bruce looked at the strong man and asked him: "What will happen if I don't come back?"
The strong man smiled and said, "Don't worry, the gang is short of people now, you will have a good place, especially since you are a beauty."
This chapter has been completed!